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A Reply to Collins and Yearley

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A Reply to Collins and Yearley T2 Don't Throw the Baby Out with the Bath School! A Reply to Collins and Yearley Michel Callon and Bruno Latour Mademoiselled e l'Espinasse:" Voilà ma toile; et le point originaire de tous cesf ils c'est mon araignée" Bordeu:" A merveille" Mademoiselled e l'Espinasse:" Où sont les fils? Où est placée I'araignée?" Diderot,L e Rêved e d'Alembert Harry Collins and Steve Yearley {from now on C&Y) âre sâtisfied with the stateo f socials tudieso f scienceM. ost o{ the problemsh ave been solved, important discoveriesh ave been made, sociology is firm enough on its feet to study the natural sciences.T hus, accord- ing to them, there is no fundamental reason to switch to other frameso f reference-and there is still lessr eâsont o let "bloody for- eigners"d abblei n a field where the British have beenf irmly in com- mand for so mâny yeârs.W herever we go, C&Y have already been there, have given satisfactory explanations,h ave developeda n ade- quate methodology,a nd have solvedt he empirical problems.E ven if they recognize that there might be some residual difficulties-the problems of reflexivity, thât of symmetry the potential conflict be- tween relativism and social realism-their solution is to shun these intellectual traps by a process of alternation, another name for blithe ignorance,a nd an appealt o common sensea nd professional Harry Collins and SteveY earleyh ad the generosityt o host a one-dayi nformal semi- nar to play chicken "live." SteveW oolgara nd Bruno Latour were the contestantsa nd Gerard de Vries and Wiebe Biiker the refereesM. embers of the Bath School,D avid Goodinga nd David Travis, abstainedi n a gentlemanlyw ay from pushing the contes- tants under the traffic. The final dinner was in a Lebanesere staurant,b ut we decided not to take this as an omen of future civil strife. We beneffted enormously from this one-dayd iscussionb ut restrict ourselvesi n this paper to the published materials. Many useful comments by Gerard de Vries, StevenS hapin,a nd Mike Lynch could not be used, since we had agreedn ot to alter our respectivep aperss o much as to make them movable targets.O n the whole we felt it was a welcome and clarify- ing debate.W e thank Gabrielle Hecht and Michael Bravo for their comments and corrections. 343 A R G U M E N T S loyalty. Sociologyi s good enough to do the job, and if it is not, then let them be like their brave ancestorsa nd say," right or wrong, my discipline." The overall tone of C&Y implies thât if all those bizane ideasw ere left to thrive, sociologistso f sciencem ight have to retool some of their concepts/s tart reading new people, maybe even phi- losopherso f the pre-Wittgensteine ra, or worse/ economists of tech- nical change,p olitical philosophers,s emioticians, and while we are at it, why not novelists or technologists or metaphysicians?N o, whatever other schoolsh ave to offer, none of them is better than the good old sociology we have at hand, and instead of helping the Frencht o overcomet heir deficiencies,i t is better to throw them out with the bathwater. We disagreew ith this âssessmenot f the field. We are dissatisfied with the state of the art, which is now in dangero f dismantlement after fifteen yearso f rapid advance{ seeL atour, in press,a , f.or adiag- nostic). We think it is about time to changet he bath wa.ter,b ut con- ûary to our colleagues,w e do not want to throw the baby out with it, and especiallyn ot the Bath school. We learned a greatd eal from Collins's work-the study of âctive controversies,t he meticulous application of symmetry in the treâtment of parasciencest,h e em- phasis put on local skills, the careful study of replication, the dis- mantlement of epistemologists'hegemony,t he stresso n networks and entrenchment mechanisms, and above all, his crisp and witty style of reasoning.H owever, we do not believe that the microsociol- ogy of the Bath school has put an end to the history of the field. We are also dissatisfiedw ith our own network theory, but contrary to C&l we do not seet his as a reasont o put our head in the sanda nd pretend that sociology of science is "business as usual." Our defi- cienciess pur us to go on looking for alternatives,o riginal methods, and yes, a still more radical definition of the field. The domain is young. The topics of sciencea nd society have barely been touched. For their sometimes condescendingb ut on the whole earnestc ri- tique of the "Paris school," C&Y have chosent wo papersw hich are explicitly "ontological manifestos" out of a production of six books, five edited volumes and about sixty articles. Fair enough.I n our re- ply we will stick to those two papersa nd will abstain from using other materials, although we will cite many others for the benefit of readersi nterested in following through. If we agreet o restrict the dispute to those two papers/t hen in return C&.Y have to acknowl- edget hat we wrote them in a peculiar style. We recognizet hat the empirical basis of those two papers and their methods are rather idiosyncratic,b ut their goal is to transform the definition of entities as it is acceptedi n the field of social studies of scienceb y doing two 344 M I C H E L C A L L O N A N D B R U N O L A T O U R ontological experiments, one on nâture/ the other on technology. Each of them is followed by scoreso f methodological and empirical paperst hat C&.Y have the right to ignore, although the accusation of a poverty of methods, of lack of rigor, and of a failure to provide explanationsw ould have been more compelling had a slightly larger corpusb een chosen. The major criticism made by our colleaguesi s that even if our position is philosophically radical and justified, its practical effect on the use of empirical material is prosaic,r eâctionary/a nd danger- ously confusing. The justification for this judgment is that in spite of what we claim, we are accusedo f going back to the realist posi- tion to explain scientific facts and to technical determinism to ac- count for artifacts. Since in Paris and Bath we all agree that the touchstone of any position is its empirical fruitfulness, we concede that if indeedt he empirical evidencei s proven messy,w e waive for- ever the right to appeale ither to the quality of our philosophy or to the purity of our intentions. In intellectual controversieso ne goodw ay to âssessth e quality of claims is to see which side understandsn ot only its own position but also that of the other side {another,l ighter, touchstone is check- ing to seew hich side readst he other's production completely). We feel that the exasperationo f C&Y is not only respectableb ut under- standableâ nd importânt for the future of the field, and that we are able to explain both why they are wrong and why they can't help misinterpreting us in the very way they do. The yardstick they are using to qualify any given piece of work as "âdvanced,"" radlcal," or "reactionary"i s the following (seef ig. 12.1).T here is one line going from the nature pole to the social pole, and it is along this line that schools of thought may be logged.I f you grant a lot of activity to nature in the settlement of controversies,t hen you are areactionary, that is, a realist; if, on the contraryt you grant a lot of activity to society in settling controversies,t hen you are â constructivist or a radical, with various nuâncesw hich may only be loggeda long this line. Although the philosophical foundation of this yardstick is cru- cial, we will not go into that, since the debate only hinges on the empirical use of this philosophy; but seeL atour 1990,i n press,â . The claim of C8r.Yi s that social studies of science( or SSK,a s they choose to call it) is engagedi n a fight, a tug-of-war between two extreme positions, one which they label "natural realism" which starts with the existenceo f objectst o explain why we humans agree about them; and the other, which they label "social realism," which starts/ on the contrary, from the firm foundation of society in order to account for why we collectively settle on mâtters of fact. The 345 A R G U ] T { E N T S Naturep ole Societyp ole <|- -+ reactionary conservative happy medium progressivist radical Figure l2.l Positionsi n sciences tudiesd ebatesa re aligneda long one line only, going from Nature to Societya nd using terms which are politically laden. alternation they advocate is that we should switch from natural re- alism when we ares cientistst o socialr ealismw hen we play the role of sociologistse xplainings cience.T his point is very important, be- câusei t is this alternation that C&Y call "symmetry." In this tug- of-war,a ny sociologistw ho stopsb eing a social realist would be a traitor, since he or she would abandont he fight or/ worse still, help out the other side.W e in Pari.sa re viewed as such traitors, because we give back to naturet he role of settling controversiesT.
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